The Pet Peeve thread

[Kobal2fr]

OK, so we have the 1.2 buglist and 1.3 wishlist to vent off our "OMGWTFFFS this game is horrible" urges, and the tongue-in-cheek one to make fun of them. What about... the little things ? You know, the stuff that's not game breaking however you stretch the word, but that just feels wrong to you. That detracts from your experience somehow. The minor detail that breaks the camel's back ? The silly thing you can't clear out of your mind and just haunts your nights, hounding and clawing at your sanity until you're nothing but the dessicated husk of the man you once were ?

OK, I'll start to get the ball going. Here's what nags me :

- the fact that every general, no matter your tech level or what the date is, is in full Renaissance plate. Heck, even brigand captains attached to a lone peasant unit have them.

- Likewise, no matter wether it's turn 1 or 225, the guards in spy/assassin videos are always in full field plate.

- Xbowmen quivers being on the wrong side of the model.

- I have no idea what the weather is. Oh sure, I can see rain, or snow, or fog but... What ? Is it "light showers clearing up later" ? "dense fog all day" ? "sunny with chances of rain later" ? I wanna know ! I USED to know !


And a strictly RTW one :

- "Domus dulcis domus" ? Whoever came up with that one oughta be castrated and shot. And if it's a temporary, beta, debugging name that somehow got left in the game, who let it slip needs to be drawn and quartered.
I mean it was so... underwhelming. "Congratulations ! You have managed to expand Roman culture all the way to the edges of the known world against all odds ! Here's us taking you for an idiot as a reward."

[Philbert]

One thing I find annoying is the fact that if you have 2 units of something, the order in which they are deployed in the field is always (! not 50% of the time, but always) reversed: The unit listed left is deployed on the right and the unit listed right is deployed on the left.

Now I usually change the default deployment anyway, but still it nags me.

[Fußball]

One thing I find annoying is the fact that if you have 2 units of something, the order in which they are deployed in the field is always (! not 50% of the time, but always) reversed: The unit listed left is deployed on the right and the unit listed right is deployed on the left.

- the fact that every general, no matter your tech level or what the date is, is in full Renaissance plate. Heck, even brigand captains attached to a lone peasant unit have them.

- Likewise, no matter wether it's turn 1 or 225, the guards in spy/assassin videos are always in full field plate.

I also find these slightly annoying.
@Philbert: That simply does not make sense, reversing the order. This has likewise annoyed me. Why would one simply do such a thing...

@Kobal2fr: Also, it nips at me that any non-Islamic faction you play has the same armor. You go to Eastern Europe into Russia and everyone wears the same armor except your general, who thinks it is cool not to conform, so he wears Western European style full plate. It would have been nice if based on a faction's location at least, that the given general wore different armor.

A long time peeve of my own is the lack of substance given to the Mongols. CA seemed to give them all that they needed on the battlefield, but not on the campaign map. They are considered an Islamic faction, they have Islamic portraits and their general and army markers are Islamic. CA had enough time to make simple voice overs for them but not enough time to give them a bit more detail?

Tschüß!
Erich

[HoreTore]

Yeah, the deployment phase is definitely my pet peeve. I hate having to reverse the sequence on my unit cards at the start of every single battle...

Also, I'd want the ability to make custom tactics. Like what we had in MTW, where you could choose various deployment possibilities from a list, bu we can make our own. When hunting rebels(or other small/medium battles), for example, I always use the same formation, however, it is not the one my troops are deployed in...

[Kobal2fr]

Ah, right. I'd like to add "I can't reorganize unit cards like I'd want to" to the list then :)

[Whacker]

Hrmmm... "Little" things?

- City view feature. Utterly fail to understand why that was removed from RTW when it was already there.

- The unit and building queue and info cards have a 'rushed' feel to them, and are not nearly as vibrant or clear as the RTW ones.

[Deus Le Volt!]

Does having every city near enemy territory surrounded by assassins count?
That's the one thing I can't stand...

[Joshwa]

It really, really gets on my nerves that some roads don't meet up, cf. the cross-roads in Sofia, Aleppo and whatever the moorish capital is called. Sometimes i deliberately avoid taking over those territories just so i don't have to look at them. The default farmland annoys me as well, ive changed it to middle_eastern_2 now and it's much more appealing

[Tusk]

Something that really p's me off is how, when I am struggling to build even basic units in a region's castle (due to lack of money/technology) a stack of 6-8 rebel units will suddenly, miraculously spawn with soldiers which my castle can't even build yet (the only castle in that region, mind you). Did the rural scum suddenly figure out how to beat pikes and plate armour in their straw huts?

On that note, also the way that a city, when it rebels, is suddenly filled with a full stack of hardcore, advanced soldiery whereas most of those units can't be built in the city in the first place, and even if they could, should take many turns!

It would be nice to see rebel forces build themselves up over time, with you knowing that the longer it takes you to nail them, the tougher they'll be.

[Callahan9119]

heres mine

guns dont seem to fire and reload properly most of the time, half the time i have them in my armies my brain is screaming WTF are you doing, reload or shoot

and another is after a unit has engaged with another, if i send it out charging after the routers, or to another unit, only the first row go, the others stand around or "stalk" around looking for an imagined foe

also pikes and halbs (especially halbs) are to quick to break formation if one enemy gets in the line, seemingly every man within five yards of him feels compelled to drop his pike and grab a sword, while the fellows in the back shuffle around, pikes to the sky, waiting and hoping for that man to get within 5 yards of them...so they too can drop the pike

these 3 are the ones that cause me the most trouble, other things i can ignore or work around

[Kraggenmor]

Portugese, Sicilian, Spanish and Venetian characters all sound the same.

[Kobal2fr]

heres mine

guns dont seem to fire and reload properly most of the time, half the time i have them in my armies my brain is screaming WTF are you doing, reload or shoot

and another is after a unit has engaged with another, if i send it out charging after the routers, or to another unit, only the first row go, the others stand around or "stalk" around looking for an imagined foe

also pikes and halbs (especially halbs) are to quick to break formation if one enemy gets in the line, seemingly every man within five yards of him feels compelled to drop his pike and grab a sword, while the fellows in the back shuffle around, pikes to the sky, waiting and hoping for that man to get within 5 yards of them...so they too can drop the pike

these 3 are the ones that cause me the most trouble, other things i can ignore or work around

All of those, I'd classify as "serious stuff", in that they can ruin the game by themselves, or in that fixing those would make a lot of people scream with joy. But this is not what this thread is about, more about the very, very minor stuff that everybody but you would just zoom right past without noticing there was a problem with them.

[Tusk]

Another peeve is how, everytime after I've JUST started a new campaign, i discover something that makes me want to play another faction! How can I play 10 campaigns at once?!!!

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Sallies

When I am besieging a castle or town and the AI sallies out my army's deployment has been done by a complete nuttcase, fruitcake or whatever. You know all units in a single line with the general on the extreme left flank.

If I sally out of a castle the AI army has a better deployment but has a sick tendency to carry all its siege equipment all over the battlefield.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Another peeve is how, everytime after I've JUST started a new campaign, i discover something that makes me want to play another faction! How can I play 10 campaigns at once?!!!

Buy nine more computers

[Ranos]

Another peeve is how, everytime after I've JUST started a new campaign, i discover something that makes me want to play another faction! How can I play 10 campaigns at once?!!!

I have that, play a new campaing every day. Save to say i havent seen the aztecs yet.

[Whacker]

More

Sapping - It's gone. Why????? That was one of, if not the, premiere tactic for breaching enemy wall defenses. This is honestly probably more of a "major" thing for me as opposed to a peeve, but I'll stick it in here anyway.

Huge 240 men units as opposed to measly 150 - Yet something else to blame the MP crowd for. I'm just kidding guys.

Time control slider - Yeah I know we can shift click now, but that's not the same as the almighty slider.

[crpcarrot]

tower defences firing flaming sho when they cant even hit the target with normal ammo

[Tyrac]

One thing I find annoying is the fact that if you have 2 units of something, the order in which they are deployed in the field is always (! not 50% of the time, but always) reversed: The unit listed left is deployed on the right and the unit listed right is deployed on the left.

Now I usually change the default deployment anyway, but still it nags me.

Yeah. Drives me nuts.

[Kobal2fr]

I have that, play a new campaing every day. Save to say i havent seen the aztecs yet.

*looks away*
I...I've never... I've never seen the Timurids....I'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN GUNPOWDER, DADDY !
*bursts into tears*

Yah, I've got grass-greener-on-other-faction's-soil-itis too

[Ciaran]

A peeve would be the faction heir status jumping all over the family tree.
A major annoyance is the fact that mounted units can´t dismount, especially since I seem to recall that it had been stated back in time that this particularly lovely feature would make a reappearance.

[Tyrac]

THE QUOTES!!!!!

Would it really take much more time to get a few more? We all play this game too much..... So we have all seen every single quote about 20 or more times.

Read the signatures on this board for example. There is NO shortage of things to say yet I have to suffer the same damn things over and over every time I play.

Hell just add back in the quotes from the past 3 games even!!!!!

[phunkbot]

Mine would be the way how you have to coax the game with various little tricks to reorganize your unit cards on the campaign map and having to pause and pause and pause a battle to maintain at least a chaos I am to blame for....

[Deus Le Volt!]

Portugese, Sicilian, Spanish and Venetian characters all sound the same.

I agree. The Sicillian Doge should sound like Don Corleone. Wouldn't that be great?

[SwordsMaster]

Actually, I don't know how many of you have been to Spain, but the spanish accent is very accurate, and I have no qualms about it. A spanish person speaking english would sound exactly like that. It is one thing CA did do right.

[Ranos]

My peev would be that when using an agent with 95% chance of succes, alot of times he fails. What are the odds

[Skott]

Hmmm.. alot covered here. Lemme try one not yet mentioned but not game breaker. Unwanted armies/stacks on my territory! Now if I go tromping through a AI faction's land my rating goes down but if Mr. Neighbor comes walking through or parking a army/stack on my territory he gets no penalty. He can sit there forever and often does. Why dont we have the ability of sending a diplomat to Mr. Neighbor's nearest guy/town/fort and say "Hey! Get off my land in X-amount of turns or else!"?

[Kobal2fr]

God, I forgot one of my earliest ones. The thing that totally freaked me out during my first M2TW battle : the "no-longer-Attack-Of-The-Clones" system.

It's great, there's no question about that. The idea of giving each soldier his own random pick between N faces, X armors, Y shields, Z helmets etc... was nothing short of brilliant. AFAIK, only MoC does that too, and they probably mooched the idea off CA. But... those widely diverse soldiers ?
They all have the exact same fricken weapon !

Oh I agree with you, that's industrial-grade nitpicking but... wouldn't it be SO cool if, say, a DFK unit sported some guys with swords, some blokes with hammers, some with maces, flails, axes, spetums, morningstars, bohemian earspoons, bastard swords, hammers, clubs, clubs-with-a-nail-innit, glaive-guisarme-glaive-glaives, icepicks, and/or twin-pronged tallywhackers ?

The worst thing is that they kind of did that with Christian peasant units : those wield at least two different kinds of pitchforks, so you KNOW it could have been done. Only it didn't.

[MStumm]

It bugs me when Byzantine general ask Santiago for help.

[Foz]

Things that are annoying but not totally awful. Hmm.

- One peculiar one is that units sometimes inexplicably fail to follow all their waypoints. I've laid out a 2-point path and had the unit move half a second in the first direction, then immediately jump at the second WP. Especially when the first waypoint is to get the unit to flanking position, this is disastrous.

- The way units look when holding ladders. Don't know exactly how, but I think the ladder just eerily floats across the landscape, as if under mental control by the ladder unit instead of actually held in their hands. It's like they put up a half-hearted attempt to cover up their telekinetic skills by keeping the ladder close enough to almost fake that they're actually carrying it.

- The way a general's death and ensuing close-up cutscene can completely screw you over by taking away your window to issue a critical order. I have actually cursed out the dying enemy general a few times because he was, though cutscene death, serving his faction far better than he did alive by depriving me of critical command seconds.

- The fact that you don't get to see the enemy general's speech. I want to hear what crap he's dishing out about me, and get fired up to shut the man up once and for all! Screw what's realistic, I just want to hear it.

- artillery snafus. I've seen all sorts of crazy friendly fire incidents, not the least of which was when my cannons kept firing even though infantry were advancing through them. Many good men were lost that day. The most funny and likely also most disconcerting is that cannon crews can kill themselves/each other. If there are non-flat terrain features, the cannons can line up too close together or the crew can be forced to stand too close the their own gun, both of which result in immediate death upon firing. What's worse is more men will run up and often fall prey to the exact same situation that made the last crew die. Insane and often troubling, but almost always also hilarious.